My biggest (only real) gripe with it is the "sit by and watch a civilisation die from something we could prevent inside five minutes without ever being noticed" shtick.
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Bonus points when they try to bring fate into it
God yes. That's so goddamn annoying every time. Primary reason why I always skip 30 days.
The Prime Directive is not a bad idea when it exists to minimise harm. When it gets turned into a pseudo-religious dogma, where it is considered better to allow a culture to be extinguished than to risk contaminating it, that's when there are problems for me.
Zero tolerance policies ensure injustice in outlier cases. Yes, it’s unethical to interfere in a civilization’s development 99.9% of the time, but there are always exceptions. Ignoring outliers is pretending your system is above the fundamental laws of the universe.
First, and just to make crystal clear that I agree, I agree.
Second, I'm not sure Starfleet Command is, in any century, quite up to really comprehending this.
A thought experiment occurred to me. What is the absolute best subject for a zero tolerance policy? Genocide is the first thought. The most horrific evil that could ever be inflicted.
But let’s say hypothetically, there was a virus that was highly-transmissible and has a 100% fatality rate. A virus killing all of mankind. And let’s say somehow this virus is sentient. We have no idea how it works, but we can confirm that it thinks, feels, etc. The virus is provably sentient for our hypothetical purposes.
If someone develops an absolute cure to the disease, it will save everyone, but it will also wipe out the sentient virus. That is technically genocide, but it saves all life from death. Should a zero tolerance policy govern? Or can we at least have a conversation about wiping out the sentient virus?
@NVariable @Benfell isn’t this an ‘us vs them’ choice for mutual genocide?
My hot take: we either (a) persuade the virus to stop our genocide or (b) kill it because we could have coexisted if only they’d been able to.
But that has a Corollary: If one deems ‘us vs them’ must be decided in favor of the organism able to coexist without annihilating another (something the virus can’t prevent itself from doing): is human-caused mass-extinction an indictment against us? Seems so.
For a precedent, consider how we treat nonhuman animals.
We would shamelessly obliterate the virus.
And yes, of course we're hypocrites with a human-caused mass extinction event.
Basically exactly what I was going to say. Like what is the harm in contaminating them when the alternative is non-existence?
I think it really just boils down to that notion that it's better to let a civilization die in a preventable natural disaster than interfere with their "natural development".
Aside from that absolutist take, there seem to be plenty of exceptions to the PD - Starfleet is free to respond to distress calls, consider individual requests for asylum, offer assistance when a planets government asks for it, etc.
One thing you hear sometimes is that they only really contact people once they have FTL because then it becomes impossible to just ignore them.
Which raises the question, is ignoring people's plight something you want to do? I guess its a trolley problem. It also sounds kinda imperialistic.
The zoo hypothesis is even more imperialistic. A civilization should have some rights regardless of whether it has FTL.
But the core point of not being imposing is noble.
I would argue that waiting for FTL is a very good strategy.
Its not there because you can no longer ignore them, but it means they are ready to leave their star system and are ready to joing the galactic community. Its also a kind of a test, as developing an FTL requires certain understanding of both science and technology, and as Harkonnen explained very well, this insures that those people have a sufficient level of intelligence to be an equal participant in the galactic community.
Also, its not really ignoring them. Its shielding them from the more advanced technology and problems that they are not ready to face. Also, they have rights. They have rights to live and to evolve at their on pace. Any such world in Federation teritory is protected from any interference by a FTL capable species. Otherwise, they would be enslaved like in Stargate universe.
It would be pretty cool to see some episodes on some non Federation rase (like Cardassians or something) enslaving newly discovered civilisation.
I think the original Prime Directive from TOS was fairly straightforward. A statement about the U. S.' involvement in the Vietnam war. Another, "In the future, we don't do that kind of stuff anymore." Storytelling in Star Trek evolved and expanded over the years. I think this has left the Prime Directive still valid, but vague.
Vague in the what ifs of not intervening to prevent the destruction of a civilization that isn't brought on by that society's (or societies) decisions. I get if the Federation sits out on stopping a society its own self-destruction. Even if new to warp technology, a planet with societies bent on self-destructing means about all the Federation could do is become the planetary police force. I think SNW's s1e1 planet Kiley 279 is an outlier. Kiley 279 being on the precipice of warp-backed absolute destruction was Starfleet's fault. Unintentional, but still their fault. I think violating the Prime Directive in that situation was warranted.
The Prime Directive is like the rule to stop at red lights. Not an extensive treatise, but important. Violating that rule can lead to very bad things. Still, sometimes following the Prime Directive can lead to very bad things, like in the Terran universe. I wonder what would happen if that scenario was repeated in the regular Star Trek universe. I think the First Contact Protocol is a lot more extensive and comprehensive. There's a lot of possible first contact scenarios, from "hey, cool, welcome!" to panic and attacking the landing party.
The Prime Directive is important. However, I think it isn't comprehensive.
More rules=more opportunities to let criminals through without consequence. If you have rules A,B,C,D,E,G,H,I.. Someone could reasonably say "You were so thorough, the omission of "F" had to be intentional".
A B&W guideline, with the understanding that the letter can be violated at the cost of a thorough investigation afterward is a reasonable approach if everyone acts in good faith.
That's an interesting perspective. I agree that "this is a set law" can be perceived as anything not covered being construed as legal (although not necessarily moral). Which could lead to the creation of a new law, or the change in an existing law, to cover the new territory. I also agree that with a guideline a lot depends on acting in good faith. I think the Prime Directive is vague when the situation is the destruction of a civilization due to a natural cause, not from the actions of the civilization.
Say a natural event -- a meteor or asteroid or solar flare or something -- will cause an extinction level event on the planet with a pre-warp civilization. And, Starfleet has the means to prevent such a thing. As long as the pre-warp civilization never knows that their destruction was prevented by Starfleet, whether choosing to save the civilization or to doing nothing and allow it to be destroyed, are both following the Prime Directive. For me, that's where the Prime Directive is vague. Or, quite likely, I'm unsuccessfully trying to process two vastly different outcomes having the same value, i.e. not violating the Prime Directive.
It is vague, and I would consider that positive. In your asteroid example, neither approach would lead to hard disciplinary action, but perhaps leadership could stress that moving the asteroid was the better approach, and that would propagate through channels, so the next time, a captain will act accordingly.
Pike's interference is a little less clearcut. I think he did the right thing, and leadership seems to agree.
The debriefing can propagate through channels, and others can use it as a guideline to compare with their situation when it occurs.
The outcomes for what a captain does can range from a hand wavy "Good job", to a week's long tribunal that ends with the captain stripped of rank and sent to a prison camp.
It's imperfect, as everything is, but it's a good workable system when used by elite professionals, and will result in a positive outcome more times than not.
Precedent will make it better over time.
Sorry for the multipost. I'm on Mastodon, and have a character limit. I'm trying to limit my accounts, and working within restrictions, but I'm not sure the Mastodon-Lemmy is working out.
No worries about the multi-post. Of course, you must do what works best for you. Hopefully, that decision will keep you posting here on Star Trek. Your views and opinions are interesting and welcomed.
The Prime Directive seems at least a little bit hypocritical if it fails to discriminate between species on a planet.
I’m thinking about how there are dolphins serving on some Starfleet ships. Was the PD undeveloped when they were introduced? Was there a pre-warp history of Earth’s humans and cetaceans working together in similar capacities (such that they could be seen as sharing a collective technological culture)?
I definitely have issues with the episodes where they decide it's better to let civilisations die than interfere, if it were up to me they'd be retconned away or at least rewritten.
But in general I think it's a good idea, including not interfering with the politics of other space-faring civiliations. The Federation respects life but it also respects culture. The prime directive relates to the latter. Having the development of warp technology as the cutoff point for no interactions at all kind of makes sense since it allows those societies to develop a unique culture of their own. Letting civilisations die is silly, having a slightly interfered-with culture is better than no culture at all, unless perhaps the people within that culture would rather it die.
I see the prime directive as a way to prevent imperialism. Being on good terms with other cultures is one thing, but being on good terms because you've interfered means something intangible has been lost about their society and culture.
I also consider the fact that everyone thinks they themselves are the "good guys", even people who do bad things. If the Federation just abandoned the prime directive every time they thought "oh it's the moral thing to do this time" then they may as well not have the prime directive at all.
Think about it this way: you come across a society that believes in sacrificing innocent people to the gods. Is it okay to interfere to prevent the loss of life? But what if it was the other way around and you were the smaller civlisation and a large empire that believes in sacrifices finds it abhorrent that you don't sacrifice anyone, and tries to force that culture on you?
I'm not equating not-sacrificing and yes-sacrificing as moral equals, that's just an example to demonstrate that the action of the interference by a larger society could be dangerous. If we interfere because it's "the right thing to do" we run the risk that in a couple of hundred years' time our own culture has progressed to the point where we consider our previous beliefs to be wrong and that it was wrong to force smaller cultures to adopt them. I'm sure you can find examples by looking at real life empires vs. what the modern versions of those countries now believe.
Prime Directive or some sorts of regulation regarding contacts of advanced technical cultures with those less advanced is a necessity for a number of reasons. Of course, this is not an easy issue, as it touches so vague and fuzzy concepts like morality. I think there are some episodes that clearly show why it is needed, and some others why from our perspective it is morally ambiguous to say the least. For starters we should take a look in a rule that was stated AFAIR by Arthur C. Clarke: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This takes into consideration that lesser developed societies will have trouble to comprehend that some piece of technology is not something supernatural, but completely understandable and "normal thing" which poses the risk of the "higher" of two civilisations to pose as simply gods. TNG episode "Who watches the watchers" is an excellent example of this. "Devil's due" is a second example that comes to mind, or the "Patterns of force" TOS episode. We even have real life examples of post WW II cargo cults in the pacific (also referrenced in "Star Trek: Into Darkness", although very naively and simplicisticly, when primitive culture drops their sacred texts and starts to worship the Enterprise). In this view Prime Directive is a safety mechanism that tries to circumvent this problem: let the lesser-advanced cultures develop themselves, and when we see they have the capacity to understand complexity of our technology, or develop the technology and understanding at least somewhat comparable to our own, we can risk a contact without the risk of destroying the culture whatsoever.
Then there is a moral aspect of the PD: sometimes adherring to the PD will cause us to think if it is moral to not to interfere. Example is the aforementioned "Star Trek: Into Darkness" or the infamous Enterprise episode, where Phlox doesn't treat part of population on some planet although he has the capacity to do it. This is problematic as we have problem with defining morality ourselves. For example the issue we generally agree that killing is objectively morally wrong, BUT we see some situations where it is somewhat of a necessity or it is "lesser evil". But the issue is who should decide what really is this lesser evil? Then we come into the ominous trolley problem: how to decide who should live and who should die? It's easy to condemn Phlox for genocide, but the complexity of the situation on that planet was far greater than just giving or not giving the cure. The valid question here is: who are we to decide? Why OUR set of moral rules is better then other moral set of rules, and why we should have the burden to take arbitrarily the decision for someone else based on OUR rules? Prime Directive is something of a workaround for the trolley problem: when proposed with this kind of situation we simply step back, and avoid making decision. Avoid "playing gods". We can argue if this is morally good option, but let's be honest: as a species we can't even agree on a basic set of objectively moral set of rules for ourselves, how can we then impose such rules to others?
The best way to sum it up is a quote from "Donnie Darko": It's not that simple! :)
Live long and prosper
I mean, the fundamental problem with "Dear Doctor" is that it completely misunderstands every point that it's meaning to make. Phlox may as well have said he was refusing to treat the Valakians because God told him not to. Evolution doesn't have a will. It didn't "want" the Menk to take over the planet any more than it "wanted" the dodo to go extinct. While this might have been what happened if Enterprise had never come by, if it's right to help save the Valakians if there had been no one else to replace them, then it's also right to save them as they live alongside the Menk.
Yes, evolution doesn't have a will, but it's a natural process that just goes, and speaking about "will" here is just a some euphemism for not wanting to interfere with natural process. The episode was supposed to really show the problems and dillemas that led to form the Prime Directive, and aside of what we think about Phlox decision, it does it's job.
The problem is that there's nothing inherently special or good about natural processes. Why should they want to avoid interfering with them?
Very nice write up. And i agree with most of what you wrote.
I would like to add this. There are cases where interfering would help, and it would produce a best outcome. But, the problem is that it could go extremely badly as well. Do you risk and try to help, or just do nothing?
Its also a problem in todays courts. Are the people who dont intervene when they witness a crime criminals or are they in the right? This may be easier to answer and argue. But when you deal with a completely different species and culture, who is to say that your morals are correct? Who is to say that they would even want your help?
You could literaly play god for these people as we see in few episode of TNG and even Orville. I think PD is there to ease the decision for captains. To relieve them of the moral choice. PD is a precaution, its not always the correct decision, but objectively the best general rule there could be.
Nobody wants the moral problem equvivalent to the trolley problem. Prime Directive offers a way out for captains, to transfer the resposibility. It may not be perfect, but its best considering.
Agree with one addition: when deciding the right way of proceeding we must also take into consideration, that we may not have the full set of information to carry out the decision. Situation for example: we see two men struggling on the street, we help the one who seems to be the victim, and then it appears that our "victim" was a thief who stole the second man's wallet :) Yes, it's an edge case, but edge cases best show the complexity of moral decision making. As you wrote, PD is and should be a general rule and a help to make the proper decision in situations without enoug information or morally ambiguous.
This sounds more like an atreides than a harkonnen 😂
One of the concerns I have with the Prime Directive is that it is intended to avoid a "slippery slope" problem, and so it is a very black-and-white rule. Starfleet can't protect a developing civilization from a catastrophic planet-ending disaster... and the core reason is that "interference" can be a bad thing, so we won't ever do it.
There are clearly situations where interference in another civilization would be immoral. There are also clearly situations where it would be moral. We can't possibly figure out those situations and enshrine them into law? We do better today! Homicide is illegal, but there are exceptions like self-defense, and there are mitigating circumstances like causing an accidental death.
The Prime Directive should be much more complex.
Might not make for great TV, though.
Even funnier to think about, is that Starfleet has set the development of warp technology as the cutoff. But there are clearly species out there (Q anyone) who would find that stage of a species development way too early to introduce themselves.
Yes and no. Building such a list of exceptions from general rule can be daunting if not impossible, because you may always get yourself in yet another situation that will need an exception and another, and you find yourself having law that is made of tons and tons of exceptions. I recall the episode where Picard was tasked to help to relocate some inhabitants of planets that was about to be colonized by a rase with a bloated law system and very strict about it. In my opinion this episode showed how such absolutely specific law coinsisting of tons of rules can be used against you. Furthermore moving in such law is also frustrating (we have currently lots of examples with idiotic laws that do not really work because of exceptions list). Like every law Prime DIrective works for "most cases" and just like normal law it is impossible to create it so it covers all possible outcoms and cases.
My theory -- based on us seeing numerous violations of the Prime Directive from main characters -- is that the interpretation of the rule is "you better be willing to risk your career if you break this," not "your career is 100% over if you break this."
It's a heuristic, and a good one, but there seems to be in-universe exceptions for exceptional cases.
I'm not familiar with Star Trek, but I believe the series show examples in which not respecting the prime directive has grave consequences. This serves as proof that the prime directive is relevant. These points are present in Stargate about which I'm more familiar.
But these examples are fictional. I wonder if the prime directive would be the way to go in real situations. Wouldn't there be a way to share technology safely? Does it make sense to talk about "maturity" and "readiness" of a civilization?
Maybe you have to live a catadtrophe to grasp its gravity and swear to never let it happen again. But couldn't the "inferior" civilizations be taught these trauma second-hand?
@thedarkfly In Star Trek, the Prime Directive plays a dual role as something which is critical but also something that you do not obey blindly. Some of the best outcomes stem from disobeying the D’ because there was an even higher, unwritten truth about to be violated.
I’d also suggest that the D’ doesn’t say we can never share technology; instead that we mustn’t share it openly with people who are sufficiently behind in development, and that is an important distinction.
I think the approach we've seen throughout the franchise is fairly well balanced. There are strict rules that everyone follows, until it becomes clear that the rules aren't working, and then they're broken, and the offenders are lightly slapped on the wrist because Starfleet sees that they were justified.
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